ABSTRACT
Creating sustainable business solutions requires seeing a business as part of a much larger system involving a wide variety of stakeholders— more like the complex interactions in a natural ecosystem. This chapter is a practical guide for using experiential simulations to teach sustainability in a business context. It describes the benefits of using simulation in building understanding of sustainability, describes the Transformation simulation, discusses typical lessons learned, and provides a checklist of the characteristics of an effective sustainability simulation. A simulation bridges differences in expertise, professional languages and cultures by drawing on each individual's accumulated knowledge and skills. Participants are assigned to functional roles in their company, including marketing, product design, manufacturing, finance and environmental management. Experiential learning is one of the most effective ways to promote positive change in individuals and organisations. Participants in a simulation operate at several 'nested' levels simultaneously, and therefore have rich opportunities to learn on all these levels.
